rebirth
by kathleenfergie
Summary: He didn't yell, he didn't smash things, he would only look at her. They would stand on opposite sides of a room for some time, staring at each other, and neither one would utter a single word. They couldn't stand the other's presence, yet they could not seem to leave, as if they were rooted to the floor by an invisible force. AU Oneshot. T for language and sensitive subjects.


Alright, because it is a daily ritual with me, here's a rewrite. Originally named scars, and then to forget, here is the third incarnation. It involves self-harm, so if you are sensitive to that, I suggest you not read on, but if you will read please be cautioned. Also, Mulder's views on self harm are not my own, I only wrote what I viewed the character would view.

This little oneshot is just a view into their dysfunctional life after the series. I've sort of bypassed IWTB because it personally isn't the greatest follow up movie and it added nothing to my fic.

I own nothing.

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There were so many things he would never tell her about all the time he'd lost, miles away in a place he did not know. He would never tell her of the excruciating pain he felt day after day when they invaded his body. His scars were almost enough, they seemed to scream words at her that he could no convey on his own. She had seen them many times over and would often touch them, running her fingers lightly against their seems, and she would understand.

He often had to remind himself that she, too, had scars. They were mostly smaller, but they were still there, etched into her soft skin for eternity. When he would caress the back of her neck, he'd see flashes of her many hospital visits, but those two big ones stuck out the most. Each time he had thought he would die along with her. Other scars were there, ones that came with being a mother of lost children. They made her feel ashamed, he knew, and she would always hide when she caught him staring. She felt so guilty, and so he never made any comment. He would never express to her his true feelings on that event in their life because she would shut down and it was never his place to blame her for any of it.

He never really expressed any of his feelings after they left their past life and it seemed like he would hold it all in forever.

In the beginning, holing himself up in that mock office, far away from society, was enough. A place where he could sit and think seemed to appease him, and he would lose himself in the shady memories of his past. Soon, that wasn't enough, and he'd resorted to becoming the investigator once more. She would find him consumed in newspaper clippings and magazine articles, the online world spoon feeding his obsession as he became a leader in intricate online conspiracies, some of them paying homage to the early days in his real office. He mapped out unexplained events on his walls, connecting them with pieces of string, weaving a web of knowledge and adventure. When all of that would not quench his thirst, he lashed out.

He would break things, yell, throw precious belongings at a designated wall and watch them all fall apart, a metaphor for his psyche.

She never showed it, but he knew she was afraid.

Not of him - no, never of him - but of what he was doing to himself. She was always afraid that she would lose him again, like she seemed to lose everything else.

Once the euphoria of destruction wore off, he realized that he could bleed. He'd always known that, of course, but seeing it in full force was so different. When the physical pain took over, the pain inside his screwed up brain slipped away, like the red rivers flowing down his arms and legs, dripping against porcelain surfaces that were too much of a bright white for his eyes to handle.

He was always careful to make sure she never saw the damage of it all, to stock up on first aid and cleaning products, so that her acute nose that had once dripped like a faucet could not detect the smell of his blood on every surface she knew. He invested in a lock for his office - ultimately, shattering her view that the agent inside him was gone - so that she couldn't weed out his secret, so that she couldn't stop him.

Long sleeve shirts became a staple and he barely allowed her touch. No matter how gentle the hand, he shied away.

He was never afraid that she would hurt him, only that he would hurt her.

In the end, though, he did. Just like he always did.

It all happened one night when he'd been sleeping and she was lying awake, her mind swimming with thoughts of her son and the god she thought she knew. He was there too, as he was always in her thoughts, and she couldn't bear it any longer.

Her painful curiosity had set a rift between them, pulling away his shirt with the steady stealth of an agent, stripping him of the bandages she wished she could forget.

Upon his chest was the battlefield of scars, some white, others red and broken. In the midst of the no man's land that was his body stood the long, white scar that stretched from sternum to stomach, the scar that had once stood alone as a lonely soldier.

She left that night, leaving the damned house they pretended to share and she drove in one direction, her destination unknown.

She left everything he way it was, so that he could know _why _she was gone.

It was over a week before she came back, and even then she would not speak to him. She would open her mouth to say something, _anything_, and no sound would come out, like her throat had been frozen over.

He didn't yell, he didn't smash things, he would only stand there and look at her stormy blue eyes, his sad hazel orbs reflecting the pain of the years he'd spent hiding.

They would stand on opposite sides of a room for some time, staring at each other, and neither one would utter a single word. They couldn't stand the other's presence, yet they could not seem to leave, as if they were rooted to the floor by an invisible force. They were both too hurt to do anything else.

She hurt because he wouldn't accept her help, he wouldn't open up and accept the love she continually offered, day after day, case after case, _year after fucking year, Mulder_.

He was hurt because she had discovered his weakness, and that was all it was, that he was weak. He defiled himself because nothing else worked, and her reaction sliced through him more thoroughly than any blade could. He knew, deep inside, however, that she didn't know _how _to react. _  
_

_Go be a doctor, Scully. Go be a doctor while you still can_.

She could be a doctor. She could nurse him back to health physically, take care of his wounds and stop him from repeating his actions, but she didn't know how to reach his mind. Through all the compassion and empathy she held inside, she couldn't see past his sorrow filled eyes because he would not allow her entry. He went still as the grave every time she tried to speak his given name, not the surname she'd been forced to use. He would not allow intimacy, not even from her.

_His touchstone_.

He did not know, ultimately, when their daily glaring match had ended, only that there had been a silent, unanimous decision. They needed a renaissance - a rebirth, she had called it.

It began after the sun had set on their Virginia home, the night growing quiet and cold.

Years worth of wood had contributed to the pile that would light their way into a new life. He'd watched her haul every piece into a perfect shape, and when it was lit, the flames licked the sky the two used to be a part of.

One by one, she fed his fraying maps, ripped clippings, and photo collages in the fiery pit, watching the ink transform the colour of the flames.

He had watched her from the shadows the fire's light did not touch. He watched her burn his life's work and he cared naught for what it symbolized.

It was his turn soon after, and the orange light illuminated his angular face, thin from the years of self neglect. Her own face was similar, too. Thin and fragile.

He offered to the fire their treasures, their stories held between the worried yellow manila. The pair had become so protective of the files during the last two decades, and he burned every last paper from them, excluding two photos the FBI had robbed from the two, immortalized against a case file.

He had come to group his sister's file along with his, and the small picture it encompassed showed the little girl with braids down either side of her head, the young boy with a light smile he'd never know again. He folded that picture and placed it in the breast pocket of his coveted leather jacket, the longing for a simple time crushed beneath the embers.

Her file had been thicker, for she had met the brunt end of every creep and killer, of every genetic experiment and violent illness. From the file she kept the picture of the child she'd thought to be her sister's, the child who had been a miracle, a blessing and a curse. She cradled her daughter's face against her breast and a tear ran down her face. Accompanying her daughter was the boy who had been made from love, not from the cold, sterile hands of a lab technician. In the photo he stared at the camera, perplexed at his mother's antics, and she now stared at the boy's nose that was too long and his eyes that raged like the sea. Both her children were lost to her, all that was left was photos and the marks on her stretched skin.

They kept very little from their small life, but she still wore her crucifix, and he found himself staring at it as the soft light of the fire glinted off the tarnished gold.

When the smaller fire was over, they set flame to their almost cabin-like house. The separate acts of burning had each been sacred in their own way; one to forget, and one to move on. All they owned now were the pictures, the car, the clothes on their back, and the money they carried with him. They believed, for a while, they could live, forgotten by the world. They were reborn. They were new people. And they trusted no one but each other.

When they finished with their sacrificial fire - to what they sacrificed the papers to, they did not know - they set fire to their small, cabin-like house.

The seperate fires had been sacred in their own way, acting as gateways to forgiveness - forgiveness of themselves and of the people in their lives. They could forget and move on, their only belongings encompassing pictures, a car, the clothes on their back, and the money they had saved during the years they spent in that very house.

They believed, at least for a little while, that they could live on, forgotten by the world.

The were reborn, new people.

And they trusted no on but each other.


End file.
